A Wonderful Freebie

This is really great! I'm dead serious, this is a 58-page FREE pdf book of 20 vintage crochet patterns.

http://crochetandknitting.com/craftbooks/vintage.htm

Go check it out! How lucky are we!

Just to clarify..

Those gorgeous free-form creations are NOT mine. I can't believe anyone thought they could be..=) (Although thanks for your faith in me!) I said they were what I WANTED my stuff to look like. I should have been more specific about where they came from, but what I did was make the pictures into links to the creator's page. I thought that would make it apparent but I guess I was too casual...I'm sorry, Marlo! I admire your work so much, I would never try to take credit for it! From now on I will state specifically to click on the picture to go to the creator's page. I feel terrible! What a misunderstanding....

A Random Plan

Free form crochet is amazing. Even though the whole point is to be random and not have a plan, it still takes a lot of artistic sense and practice, I think, because so far I'm disappointed with my shrine attempts. I think the problem may be that I'm only using one weight of yarn. I want it to look like a bunch of jewels scattered together, like this:

I shall attempt it again today! Instead of writing a research report for Adolescent Development! Which is just supposed to teach us how to cite online articles! Which I have done no less than twenty times since the ninth grade! I worked in the college library database, for heaven's sake...sigh.....

Not really. I'll write it. It should be easy since I really, really could do it in my sleep. Like most people, I can tell when I'm being given busywork, and it makes me feel condescended to. I am not crabbier than your average college student. I hope.

I finished the front of Olivia (or should I call it Twelfth Night? Any thoughts?) last night. I'm crocheting it in worsted weight black,in a mesh stitch, so it's not as delicate as I'd like, but I have discovered this about myself: I cannot knit anything that requires me to cast on more than 100 stitches, or crochet anything that I cannot finish within three days. It is simply a limitation I have to accept.

Olivia is essentially going to be a shrug, but the main difference is the scallops at the bottom and lace border it's going to have. It will be a lovely thing. I read that the Trevor Nunn film was set in the 1800's, so that makes it Victorian. Amazing how sexy that clothing is, considering that no one was supposed to know about sex!

I love Ben Kingsley

I saw Twelfth Night, and in addition to being in awe of Ben Kingsley's performance as Feste, I want to look just like Helena Bonham Carter's Olivia. Add that to also wanting to look like Amelie...so I want to make that black lacy thing she's wearing here:


Except add sleeves. And how on earth did they get her hair to form that messy mass on top of her head, with no visible means of support? How??